Shortly after peace had settled down again on this solitary abode, the widow was seated as usual in the cool passage with her daughters, while her second son, Ben, had gone to the spring to fetch water, and Charles had gone into the neighbouring wood with his rifle. All at once the very sharp dogs which guarded the family made an unusual disturbance and ran barking across the yard that surrounded the house. Mrs. White jumped up and saw several Indians standing in front of the nearest wood, and then retire into it again directly after. She seized the horn, sounded it with all her might, then ran into the room and took down her deceased husband's fowling-piece that was loaded with slugs, with a resolution and courage such as has grown almost entirely strange to the feminine sex in civilization, and is only found on rare occasions on its outermost frontier on this continent. In a few minutes Ben ran up and found his mother already behind the palisade with the gun in her hand. "Quick, Ben, your rifle!" she cried to her twelve year old son; "but don't forget your bullet, boy;" and then blew the horn again. The dogs now came in again, and Mrs. White closed the hole in the fence through which they passed. All at once a frightful yell was heard from the wood, and from its gloom sprang a swarm of some thirty red-skinned fiends, who dashed over the grass toward the house with an awful war-cry. "Don't fire, Ben, till I have loaded again!" Mrs. White cried, and then rapidly discharged both barrels, sending some forty leaden pellets among the charging horde. The effect of the two shots at hardly fifty yards distance was so tremendous that the horde darted in all directions as if struck by lightning, and eight remained on the grass while the others ran howling to the wood. "Fire, Ben!" Mrs. White cried to her son, who had thrust his rifle through the palisades, while she poured a handful of slugs down her gun, and placed two cotton wads upon them. Ben fired into the thickest of the fugitives, and one of them fell with his feet in the air, while the yells of the others filled the air. "I have hit, mother," the boy said, as he poured fresh powder down the barrel. "Bravo, Ben! but where is Charles? He ought to have been here by this time, as he has not been gone long. Run into the house and have a look at Fanny and Bessie, but come back again directly." Thus Mrs. White called to her son while she was hurriedly making cotton wads, which she moistened with her lips, and threw back her long raven hair which hung over her shoulders. "Mother, Charles is coming with Kitty!" Ben cried, as he ran out of the house and hurried to the hind part of the fence to open the gate for their cow Kitty, which was trotting over the grass in front of Charles. The latter had heard the horn and the shots and yells of the Indians as he hurried home, had come across Kitty, and had driven her home.